Joanna's summer fuels her `Crazy Life'

PHILADELPHIA — "This Crazy Life" is not only the title of the debut album from Philly phenom Joanna, it's also a pretty good description of her summer.

Take her most recent local performance, a matinee concert in front of a small but spirited band of day campers at the Rocky Run YMCA in Media, Pa. You can bet that Bono never had to serenade a kid cocooned in a Bananas in Pajamas beach towel.

It's all part of her record label's strategy of putting Joanna in front of crowds whenever and wherever they can be found. Meaning that Joanna's engagements range from the sublime to the rinky-dink.

This summer she's opened in arenas for Sheryl Crow ("That was an older crowd that really appreciated good talent," says Joanna), and she's played so many summer camps that she packs bug spray ("The 5-year-olds stand there with their hands over their ears," she says).

"It's not a guaranteed crowd at the mall," Joanna says. "People are just shopping. They stop to see what's going on, and then they walk away."

Looks like she may be keeping that crazy-quilt schedule for a while.

"We're going to do it with Joanna the hard way, taking her from radio station to radio station," says Ron Fair, the chairman of Geffen Records and producer of "This Crazy Life." "She's singing at malls and supermarkets. We're going to touch the grass roots. And when we do that, no one will ever take it away from her."

That kind of grand thievery has already been tried on Joanna. By experts.

The 21-year-old singer, born Joanna Pacitti in Philadelphia's Mayfair section, became the poster girl for heartbreak a decade ago when she was orphaned by Annie. At 11, after winning a massive talent contest sponsored by Macy's, she was installed on national television as the title character in a Broadway-bound revival of the musical.

After 106 shows, she developed bronchitis. The producers dismissed her, replacing her with her 8-year-old understudy just two weeks before the production opened on the Great White Way.

School of hard knocks

So let the pop music business do its worst. Joanna has endured harder knocks.

She began singing as a tyke in her father's barbershop, which is on the ground floor of the house.

"The customers would give me tips, and I'd go to the corner store for candy," she recalls.

Today the shop looks like a shrine to the budding pop star (with the exception of a faded Patsy Cline poster).

Joanna made the usual stops for a Philly prodigy: Al Alberts' Showcase at 6 to sing Connie Francis' "Where the Boys Are" and Veterans Stadium at 12 to sing the national anthem before an Eagles game.

From the beginning, she was remarkably motivated. "I was a horse with blinders," she says, "dragging my mother into New York five days a week [for auditions]. It was a lot on her, not to mention the financial strain."

Joanna maintains a dizzying positivity, even about the Annie debacle.

"It's the best thing that ever happened to me," she declares. "It made me realize I didn't want to do musical theater and helped me see that I wanted to write my own music, instead of acting."

She recorded a demo at 14 and signed a recording contract at 16 after auditioning for Fair, who had helped build Christina Aguilera's career.

"She had a tremendous sense of self-possession and just a phenomenal voice and, of course, she's beautiful," says Fair. "Then I heard the whole Annie story. For a kid to have that much talent and then have everything taken out from under her -- that gave her tremendous backbone and spirit."

With characteristic moxie, Joanna moved to Los Angeles on her own at 16.

"I didn't have my license for the first three years I was there," she says. "My manager at the time had a full-time job, so I had to wait until she was done at work to go anywhere."

There followed a seemingly endless wait while Joanna and her label tried to figure out the appropriate style for her big voice.

"I was embarrassed because I had told everybody about my record," she says.

"So every time I'd go out to see people, they'd be like, `What's going on with your record?' I'd say, `I don't know. I don't even know what's going on with my life.'"

`Let It Slide'

Then, a year and a half ago, Fair brought her the song that would become her first single, "Let It Slide."

"Ron played me the song, and I started crying," Joanna says.

The rest of "This Crazy Life" quickly fell in place.

At her label, they're referring to the album's approach as "nouvelle Ronstadt" and "neo-Benatar."

Whatever you call it, the moment you hear Joanna belt out the chorus to "Let It Slide" you know you're in the presence of a major pop talent, a singer with pipes to rival Mariah Carey's (though without the five-octave range).